AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



AN ADDRESS, 



ON THE SUBJECT OF 



AGRICULTURE AND HORTICULTURE, 



DELIVERED IN THE CHURCH OF THE MESSIAH, 



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TIIUISSDAY, OCTOBER 9tb, 1815, 



By henry MEIGS, 

A Member of the American Institute. 



JAMES VAN N O RD EN "fe'lD^o./ 'PR INTERS, 

No. 60 WiLLUM-STREET. 

1845, 



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ADDRESS. 



Ladies and Gentlemen : 

Tke American Institute, in its wish to provide on this occasion such 
an address as would find favour in your judgments, had, on looking 
around our Repul)lic for one capable of so delightful and instructive an 
address as would have deeply interested you in these most pure and 
most useful subjects, invited the aid of the Hon. George liUnt, of New- 
buryport, whose richly stored mind would have poured out before you 
the true immense values of the farm, and also would have graced with 
all the garlands of poetry the glorious regions of the flower garden. 
The Institute, with great regret for his unexpected indisposition, has 
directed me to exert my humble ability to fill the void thus produced. 
In prompt obedience to its direction, as an ardent servant in the gieat 
cause to which the Institute directs the greatest portion of its energy, 
I am honoured with the task of delivering to you the views of the 
American Institute in relation to these subjects. I beg your kind in- 
dulgence while I make the effort, assuring you, that if I should fail in 
pleasing you, it will not be for want of enthusiasm in the cause. 

Ladles and Gentlemen : Let me begin by borrowing from the great- 
est man that ever lived, from our own dearly beloved Wasliington, his 
opinion of the Agricultural cause; an opinion among the very last 
communicated to his fcllow-men. That opinion, contained in his mes- 
sage to Congress in 179G, was, That the Government of this Republic 
should then establish a separate Department for Agriculture ; that the 
purse of the nation should be freely employed in the cause. He en- 
treated Congress to establish a Home Department /m- Agriculture. The 
American Institute is now, and has been for some time ])ast, engaged 
in awakening the vast farming interest of this country to the fulhlment 
of IVa.sh'uiglon's wisli. 

He knew, and all great men know, that the cultivation of the earth 
is our very first and our most delightful duty. That Paradise lost by 
transgression can only be regained here on earth by the sweat of our 
brows, in clearing away thorns and briars, and causing our vallies to 
show forth their golden harvests, and our gardens to blossom with rcjses. 
All savage life is without agriculture, worth any not"^ . All semi-wild 
existence is without a garden. By due care fgud '^ ■^•rcise of intelli- 
gence, animals of a wild nature are subdued to r- g^i^'^Jc habits. Man, 
in the pride of his high standing, as one created in the like?iess of God, 
is capable cf subduing all things on earth to his own uses. He ilies on 



the back of the horse. He rides the enormous elephant in triumph. 
He makes the little ox of former ages, weighing not more than three 
or four hundred pounds, weigh Jive fJiousand. He will now get frohi 
one acre a iliousand hushcls of valuable roots. He makes the desert soils 
become cultivable fields and gardens ! He will have the earth bear a 
thousand happy beings where it bore but one unenlightened savage ! 
He will now travel through his farms and gardens at the speed of forty 
miles an hour, and he piints the Holy Book hy millions on viillions, hy 
the same steam poioer by tvliich he flies ! 

Happy are we to be in this period of time, when the tewplc of Janus 
is truly closed ; and when those of t/ie Ahuighty are houv]y rising from 
the ground, all through the civilized world, and unfolding their portals 
to a happier race. 

No man ever wrought in the field or garden with his own hands, 
without becoming more or less 'purified hy the tvork. God has com- 
manded it, and he has blessed it. In all that man does, except in the 
farm and garden, remember that he can, if he will, commit forgery. 
But in these he must he true. He has no art, no magic by which he can 
simulate a flower, a grain of wheat, or an ox ! Be the evil spirit in him 
what it may, in all these great productions of Almighty power, as the 
agent of that power, he is compelled to he true. Nature will not obey 
the evil spiiit, and enable him to tell you a falsehood in these things. 
The very mnn who will sell you chalk and tvater for viilk, cannot sell 
you rye for toheat, a violet for a rose, or a sheep for an ox ! 

Call up from the records of men those names which cannot die, and 
you will find them all of one mind as to the culture of the earth. What is 
the rule of that venerable empire at our antipodes: Chinese emperors 
have been always bound by a custom of several thousand years, to ap- 
pear in the field at the opening of every spring, and in the presence of 
the first men of the empire, take hold of tlie plough and run the fit st 
furrow ! 

Cato of Rome always cried aloud to the Romans, go to your fields 
and work them with as much energy as you would meet the enemy in 
battle ! The most beautiful poet of ancient days, Virgil, wrote two 
works that will never die. One on the management of stock, his Buco- 
lics, (meaning care of cattle) — the other the Georgics, agriculture. 

A.t the era of Virgil, Rome had attained by her power the command 
of an hundred millions of men. That was the memorahle Augustan age! 
the real achme of Roman glory. Thus you perceive that the beloved 
poet of the day, the truly admirable Maro, devoted his rich mind first 
to the raisng of cattle ! secondly to Georgics, or agriculture ; and lastly 
to the History of Rome's infancy and father iEneas. 

Such then was the imperial taste of Rome. iShe had, by following the 
just and noble precepts of Ciricinnatus, Cato, Viigil, Varro, Columella, 
of Tlieophrastus of Athens- and others of nature's r\oh]emen, estahlishcd 
virtue m her people. Virgil states the maxims oi' Much cattle much wheat ! 
Cull from your seeds. fruits always t )e very best. Spare not your stur- 

dy labour upon tlie{ Italy can be for ever maintained as a garden by 
manure of much cattle^ and by constant labour. iSteej) the seeds of your 
plants in nihz and the lees of oil. 



I 



Select Ike very best cattle to stock your farm. Kiln dry your grain be- 
fore you grind it, and it will be more wholesome. Moio your grass 
while the dcio is upon it. Agriculture is noble. The dictators of Rome 
maintained themselves from a few acres by their own daily labour. By 
such men and such means, says the Roman satirist, Juvenal, all the men 
of Rome were hravc and strong, and all the women chaste ! The empire 
grew to the enormous community of one hundred and twenty millions 
of people. 

Thiers, in his Philosophy of History, has recently beautifully illus- 
trated this vianhood of the Roman people, and also the causes of its fall. 
Men grew proud ; they began to disdain the labours of the farm ; they 
chained their captives, and compelled them to labour during the day ; and 
atnight, says Columella, the best method to manage such an obstinate 
race is to have a cellar with a strong deck over it, with a hole therein 
just large enough to let out one man at a time. These captives were 
much larger men tlian the Romans, and required great care and severity 
to render their services available in the labours of the field. Cicero, the 
eloquent Cicero, had ten thousand of these zvhite, fair-haired, blue-eyed 
slaves upon his own estates. 

This system could not endure, and poor Rome soon felt, by turns, 
the horrors of famine. The world was ransacked for grain to feed the 
Roman people. Egypt, Sicily, Spain, every colony, was compelled to 
send its grain to Italy. On one occasion the emperor, excited by the 
cries of the famished citizens of the imperial city, on account of the 
much delayed arrival of grain, in a public and solemn manner, in the 
presence of the people, V(jwed to the gods, that unless the grain to feed 
his people should arrive within three days, he would (showing it) 
plunge that dagger into his own bosom. 

The grain arrived in time to prevent the sacrifice. The glory of na- 
tions, their virtue and their high agriculture, are three inseparable 

FACTS ! ! 

What was England for fifteen hundred years ? Her history will show 
you, that her population never exceeded six millions during all that 
time. In 1509, gardening began to be of some importance in England. 
Before that time vegetables were imported from the Netherlands. Then 
began the culture in England of cabbages, gooseberries, musk melons, 
apricots, garden roots, &c. The damask rose was inti'oduced by Dr. 
Linacre, physician of Harry the Sth. In 1526, roses were first conse- 
crated as presents from the Pope ! Hops from France ! Pippin apples, 
by Leonard Mascal, in 1525. Corinthian grapes, now called currants, 
from Zante, in 1555. Musk roses, and several plums from Italy, by 
Lord Cromwell. July flowers, and carnations, in 1567. Tulips from 
Vienna, in 1578. Asparagus, oranges, lemons, artichokes, cauliflowers, 
beans, peas, lettuce, in 1660. Then began the population of England to 
grow. Then began the creation of the farmer. Then arose the delightful 
dwellings of the yeomanry oi^^ng]and, on the domains which, for more 
than a thousand years, had been occupied by feudal vassals, styled in 
the old law books villiens, over whom, in their subject condition, the 
eleven hundred military castles of England had for so many ages frowned 
in aristocratic power ! Now behold the magic changes wrought by the 

1* 



power of farm and garden. You see now the annual jubilee of these 
noble interests, attended by all the gentlemen, lords and ladies of the 
British empire. Victoria (to her credit I proclaim it) personally shows 
to her subjects the example oi love and regard for even a poultry yard ! 

Turn your eyes to France ! Louis Philippe is the protector of the 
Royal Society of Horticulture, of Paris. Thus giving his fine example 
to all our patriotic citizens who are now so nobly engaged in forming 
every where Farmer's Clubs ; which, by thus condensing the theories 
and experience of masses of men, will find those truths which are vital to 
a powerful progress in Agriculture, as well as in any other cause. See 
the Sultan of Turkey within a few months past sending commissioners 
into every district of the Mussulman Empire, to inspect the condition 
of farmers, to lend them money to buy stock and farming tools, to give 
them the most valuable seeds, and ordaining that no moM ichile engaged 
in cultivating the eartJi shall he arrested for debt ! ! 

Look for a moment at the value of cultivation ! Spain for a long 
time annually received from her mines in South America, some thirty 
millions of dollars in gold and silver. Spain, which had before that time 
a rich agriculture and a lofty name, now became proud and lazy ; her 
Hidalgos, with pompous step), paced the Piados of her cities, disdaining 
all labour. Spain drojiped her spade and hoe — sj^urned the pilough — and 
you all see the result. 

England, by her parliamentary returns last year, shows the value of 
her agriculture for that year to be three thousand millions of dollai's ; 
or as much in one year, as the mines of America had given Spain in a 
hundred years. 

Even France, so renowned for her civilization, has not yet redeemed 
the land from the original curse. Poiteau put a question last July, to 
the Scientific Congress of Rheims ! How is it that France gathers but 
six or seven grains for every one soived, of her grain crops 1 

The emperor of Russia is now seeking an exchange between his 
Farmer's Clubs and those of all the world. 

As for our own immense continent, which we have an indisputable 
commission to subdue and to till, let us for a moment try to look at it 
as it will be in the lifetime of hundreds of thousands of our children. 
Think, if you can, of the future farms and gardens bordering the two 
hundred thousand miles of river banks of this Republic ! Think of 
that glorious variety due to the climates, all of ivhich, from tropical heat 
to the northern cold ! from the low levels to the lofty plains ! Of the 
myriads of sheep browsing on the sides of your yet untouched chains 
of hills and mountains peculiar to that fleecy race. See your improved 
breeds of oxen, by millions taking the place of the buffalo on your 
mighty western plains, fit for your markets when weighing from two 
to five thousand pounds each. See your acres by the genius of chemisti-y, 
and perhaps by electricity, united with the well instructed and perse- 
vering industry of the cultivator, bearing, not the French six and a half 
for one, but ten times that amount, of the purest wheat. 

See your roads and division lines, marked, not by chohe pears, sour 
apples, and poor nuts, but by endless rows of the hundred varieties of 
most delicious pears, apples and nuts. I mean by the latter, Madeira 



tiuts and others, inclucling the finest walnuts, which may just as readily 
be grown as the bad ones. 

See every farm-house and cottage, with its silk growing department. 
See the pound weight clusters of choice cultivated grapes, in the hands 
of every boy and girl ! And remember that by the movement, on rail- 
roads as it soon wiU he, you can safvhj pass through a thousand miles of 
such a country, in two or three days! Every market of tlie Northern 
StHtes may be supplied daily with llie fruits and flowers of the tropics — 
and the invalids of either climate will be transferred with comfort to 
any position advised by a physician. On the appearance of threateninij 
storms, tlie patient will be sent, faster tlidn the gale, to a better clime, 
imitating the birds who 7?^e hrfore a tempest and keep their feathers dry ! 

Ladies, allow me in the enthusiasm of the moment, to turn your at- 
tention to the future cultivation of flowers. They belong to you of an- 
cient right. Their lovely goddess is one of you, Flora! We have not 
yet begun to see ei field offiowers ! Botanists have made mighty additions 
to floral wealth, by searching most parts of the earth for specimens. But 
up to this time, they have only clesigriated one quarter of a million op 
PLANTS ! All these have flowers, and all are susceptible, by hnemnvg and 
careful treatment, of greater variety and increased splendour. How 
much have you admiied the newly cultivated Dahlia of Mexico ! You 
perceive that from seedlings of single petals, and humble tints, art has 
already quilled them, and painted them, until they form rosettes of such 
splendour as no ancient king or queen ever wore upon the breat,t. 

France is cultivating pinks in a manner we yet do not see here. That 
fragrant little flower, of cinnamon fragrance, has already been varied 
hundreds of times in forms and colours. You all admire carnations. In 
future days the piidc garden will be of itself a delicious treat. 

Roses are constantly becoming more varied by art. Already there 
are more than a thousand diifereiit roses ! Asters (stars) are becoming 
of distinguished beauty. Tens of thousands of these lovely flowers were 
combined in one floral eiiifice, exhibited in Boston, a few days since, by 
the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. But we have only commenced, 
Ladies, the adorninor of our gardens with flowers. 

The lovely race of violets demands your attention. See their eyes, 
(for so they seem,) all tamed, to the snutli with one accord. Seldom have 
we seen a more lovely sight than a thick bed of these hearVs ease, all 
eyes looking to the south ! Who cnn fail to enjoy the sweet pea ] what 
a delicacy of growth its stem and flower present, and what a delicious 
perfume breathes from its modest petals ! 

Ladies, you have seen the festoon rose bushes, natives of our own 
land. Can any thing excel their loveliness % branch after branch stietch- 
ing out to ten times the lengths of other rose bushes, and all loaded 
with their delicious American flowers ! They have but just made their 
appeaiance in some of our court-yaids and gaidens. Tahc care, hence- 
forth, that ycju enwreath your fences and trellises with this native ro- 
seate garland ! 

And there is another floral beauty, which once enraptured even the 
most insensible o£ men. The tulip has been made to show all the co- 
lourb of the painter's palette with the most admirable forms of etruscan 



.8 

vases! It has been grouped on beds by garden sidewalks, in tens of 
thousands. A single one has once been sold for an hundred guineas ! 
Bat, Ladies, there are yet uncultivated flowers of unknown beauty, to 
be deveh)ped by the care and skill of gardeners, to thousands in num- 
ber. And do not fail, Ladies, to examine the flowers with a powerful mi- 
croscope. You will then find your admiration of them elevated to ado- 
ration of God, who elaborates their rich colours and their perfumes 
from the hroirn earth on which you tread, and from the air and light ! 
Their magnified beauty is indescribable. 

Let me, while I now enjoy the giatifying opportunity, in behalf of 
the American Institute, ask you to take care of the realm of flowers ! 
Maintain its pnu-er over vtcn along with your own, to soften and render 
that harder stiJrjer.t more and more civilized ! To meet him when he 
comes from the sturdy toil of the field, with a bouquet of hjvely flowers, 
and your yet more enchanting s/niles. Without you and the Jloivcrs, he is 
indeed hut a savage ! 

You cannot fail to observe that there is an intimate sympathy be- 
tween the religion of men and the honest and delightful employment in 
a orarden. It is almost a certainty that the garden of the country cler- 
gyman is a good one. In that alone, of our temporal concerns, we per- 
ceive at once, that the spiritual pastor is at home. Innocence, health 
and clieei fulness are nurtured, and flourish in the garden. He cannot 
be a lawyer, a merchant, or a politician, without impropriety; but a 
garden is his natural home ; and happy the pastor who, by early rising 
and proper labour in it, prepares his mind with its purifying influences, 
and his body by the physical energy which it infuses, to labour in his 
holy calling, f)r the eternal good of his congregation. 

'I he American Institute, in carrying out the great objects of its char- 
ter, has devoted much of its time and ability to the main good — Agri- 
culture. With a view to gather wisdom from numbers, it has called a 
ccmvention of farmers, gardeners and silk growers, from all quarters of 
the land, to meet in this city this day. This assembly will again apply 
its force to the establishment of an Agricultural Department of Govern- 
ment. The members approach that subject with the last best advice 
of the illustrious Washington to us, couched in the following terms, 
" It will not be doubted that, with reference either to individual or na- 
tional welfare, agriculture is of primary importance. In proportion as 
nations advance in population and other circumstances of maturity, this 
truth becomes more apparent, and renders the cultivation of the soil 
more and more an object of 'public 'patronage. Institutions for pro- 
muting it grow up, supported by the public purse ! And to xchat ohjvct 
can it he dedicated ivith greater propriety? Among the means which 
have been employed to this end, none have been attended with greater 
success than the establishment of boards, composed of proper charac- 
ters, charged with collecting and ditTusing information, and enabled, by 
premiums and small pecuniary aid, to encourage and assist a spirit of 
dis-overij and improvement, by stimulating to enterprise and experiment, 
and by drawing to a common centre the results every where, of indi- 
vidual skill and observation, and spreading them thence over the whole 



Tiatlon. Expeiience accordingly has sliovvn, ibat ihey are very clieap 
instruments of immense national henrjits." 

One great national object to come under the caie of such a Depart- 
ment, will necessarily be tbe culture of silk. Human experience lias 
taught us, that in all the immense variety of articles afforded by nature 
for human comfort and convenience, there is no one thing connected 
with the clothing of our race more to he cared for than this beautiful 
article. What utility as a thread ! what splendour as a garment ! Al- 
ready no human being is dressed to its satisfaction without some silk. 
Once more valuable than gold, and worn only by the upper classes of 
society, now it begins to form a portion of dress for almost every human 
being. An immense experience has proved its high value ; and the 
millions of dollars which America annually pays to Europe for it — 
while America ought to let Europe pay us for it — urges us to the cul- 
ture of this great staple. France says that silk can only be raised in 
small quantities by individual families. That our reliance for its pro- 
duction is absolutely upon that nice division of labour in which some one 
or more of those members of a family who are unable to do the moie 
severe labours of the farm, must have a cocoonery. By an universal 
application of this rule — and there is no other — a nation can not only 
supply itself, but spare much for other nations. 

And here allow me to repeat what is perfectly admitted by our Silk 
Conventions. That by a happy adaptation as to climate, America is 
more enabled to supply silk than any country on the ghjbe, not except- 
ing China ; the only one which possesses the like fitness for that pur- 
pose. I refer you to the report offsets on this point, made by our Silk 
Conventions. 

I feel authorized to declare, that the American Institute feels no truth 
as being better settled, than that our Continent can and ought, in justice 
to the natural cpialities with which our Creator has endowed it, to be 
the (greatest silk groioing country on the face of this globe ! 

But I console myself — although T shall not see it, perhaps — that the 
day will soon come, in which this happy land of ours will receive for her 
silk alone, fifty millions of dollars a year. 

Let no man be discouraged in his efforts to make the soil of this 
couniry productive ! Industry has a power which may almost be 
deemed magical. Who would expect from the granite hills of Massa- 
chusetts and of Maine — looking as they do, as if in the tremendous up- 
heavings of a deluge, they were rocky waves suddenly cooled while yet 
they 7vere rolling in that transforming revolution of the surface of our 
earth — who would look to see those rocks, lately bearing but viosscs and 
shrubs, when struck by the wand of Pomona and of Flora, (as Moses 
smote the rock for water,) pour out flowers and fruits like Damascus or 
Canaan ! 

I saw that triumph lately ! and like victories will be achieved over all 
our most obdurate fields and hills by our posterity. 

Omnia vincit labor. Labour conquers all, must be inscribed on our 
standard. 

Ladies, permit me now to say in parting, so long as your smiles shall 
cheer the ardent labourer in the great cause of American industry, de- 



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LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



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pend on it, that ardour can never cool ! And we of the Institute invoke 
those smiles as our greatest reward for our own labours. 

As to you, men of America, for us to urge you to persevere with un- 
relaxing energy in this mighty cause, which is fast bearing upward our 
beloved native land to the loftiest heights of wealth and power, and 
glory ! 1 would as soon, standing on the banks of our Cataract of Nia- 
gara, tell that vast hcadlovg torrent to go ahead ! 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



D00a7H3a57A 



HoUinger Corp. 



